


Pocket Full of Rye

by UmbraEmber



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Draco Malfoy is a Good Boyfriend, Established Relationship, F/M, Family Dinners, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gift Giving, Good Draco Malfoy, Good Weasley Family (Harry Potter), POV Draco Malfoy, Relationship Advice, Weasley Family-centric (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 05:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30134943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UmbraEmber/pseuds/UmbraEmber
Summary: Reformed Draco is brave and kind and perfect in every way. Now, if only he can convince his girlfriend’s six intimidating brothers of that while staying at the Burrow for Christmas.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	1. Sing a Song of Six

“How many brothers do you have, again?” Draco asked, adjusting his tie. He’d already retied it three or four times. It was the last thing he needed to get right. Well the last thing before all the things. Before an endless two weeks of _things_. “Three, right?”

“Draco!” Ginny called from the bathroom. He heard her drop her lipstick with a clatter and then rummage in her makeup bag, cursing under her breath. “Six!”

“That’s…” He fumbled with the silver tie and then pulled it off around his neck, whipping it to the floor. “Has it always been six?”

“It’s always been six,” she confirmed, sounding closer now. Their dresser drawer opened behind him with a creak. “You _know_ that. You went to school with four of them!”

“Right. Right. They were twins.” 

Draco tucked a black tie under his collar and tied it neatly. He nodded at his reflection in the floor length mirror. Perfect. All of him was perfect. Not a single strand of white-blond hair out of place. Not a single piece of dust on his emerald robe, his personal favorite with the silver stitching and embroidery around the cuffs. Not a single—

“It’s okay to be nervous.” Ginny said, coming up behind him. Her reflection smiling sweetly. She leaned her chin against his shoulder and he breathed in her sweet-smelling shampoo. “Just relax, okay?” She reached around and raised her hand to his tie and adjusted it. Made it crooked. And pressed a kiss to his neck. 

“Nervous?” Draco said with a scoff, a soft smile of his own forming. His tie was just slightly off center. If she had her way, Ginny would be loosening it and unbuttoning his robe. “Me! Draco Malfoy does not—”

He was silenced by a longer kiss on his neck that caused him to extend it and sigh.

“You know I can’t stand it when you talk in third person.”

Draco turned around, looped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer, returning the kiss and deepening it. His hands brushed against her bare skin and he groaned, wishing they could spend all morning in their small, tidy apartment. Tidy because of his meticulous efforts. He adored Ginny, wouldn’t trade living with her for anything in the world, but the awaiting horror in the bathroom sent shivers down his spine.

“I guess I’ll have to keep doing it so you can keep shutting me up,” he murmured. He looked her up and down, still in her pink pajama shorts and loose shirt, her hair pulled back in a messy bun. “You’re not even a little ready, are you?”

“My face is,” she teased. “Or was, before you messed up my lipstick.” 

“Go, go!” He slapped her bum as she passed and she looked back with a grin. He winked back and then turned to the mirror and resisted the urge to straighten his tie. “We’re going to be late,” he called in a sing-song tone, “and it’ll be all your fault.”

“I accept that,” she called back, matching his tone, and it killed Draco how pretty her voice could be. 

An hour and fifteen minutes later, Ginny twirled in a pale blue dress that shimmered silver, her cinnamon hair bouncing around her narrow shoulders. Draco couldn’t even be mad that he had been made to drape over the bed with a book and wait indefinitely. Couldn’t be mad that his once pristine robe was crinkled around the hem. That his blonde hair was ruffled and falling into his eyes. Couldn’t even be a little annoyed at how long it had taken her. She was too damn beautiful. 

“Two whole weeks?” Draco picked up his suitcase and ran his hand over his hair.

“Two whole weeks,” she confirmed, taking his free hand, smiling. 

“With all nine of them.”

“Six!” It was the last thing he heard as they apparated. As they began what was potentially going to be the least perfect day of Draco’s adult life. 


	2. Four and Twenty Blackbirds

The Burrow was tall and lean, like most of the members of the family. All staggered and wonky and tilting to one side. Like Draco’s smile as he tried to arrange his face. It was raining and Draco appreciated the weather’s consideration. It suited his mood as they walked up the stony garden path. Draco expected Ginny to knock on the wooden door but she just threw her shoulder into it, one hand grappling with her bags and the other still clutching to his, and propped it open with her foot. 

“Mum! Dad!” she called into the warmth. “We’re here!”

“Brilliant,” one of the brothers said, leaning against the wall and taking Ginny’s bags. Draco quickly noticed the lettered jumper and released a sigh of relief. That would make it easier. 

“Fred,” Draco said. For all his joking, he had sat down and attempted to memorize a list of their names and ages. F was for Fred, he was sure of it. He held his case out but Fred just blinked at him, a Cheshire smile forming, eyebrows rising. Draco should’ve waited until the parents to contort his face because it was already growing sore and tight. Pained. “Good to see you.”

“That’s George,” Ginny corrected, throwing her damp jacket off and over a banister. “Mum! I said we’re here!”

“But—” Draco began but then registered the grin on the twin’s face and paused. “Right. Funny. Very funny.”

“We like to think so,” the other twin said, appearing above them on the stairs and draping his long arms over the bannister. “We bring all the humor this family desperately needs.”

Draco stared at them for a moment. He was funny, too. He was very funny, he reassured himself. Brilliant in fact. Razor sharp wit. If this family paused to consider how funny he could be, granted often at their expense, maybe they could find common ground. The jumper thing had been at his expense, after all, right? The mirror image faces stared right back at him until he broke whatever bizarre contest he had accidentally started, awkwardly dropped his case by the front door and ducked under a hanging light. 

He tried to follow Ginny as she weaved through the house. For a family so tall, they really did live like rabbits. All narrow walls overflowing with smiling family photos, low ceilings trapping the fireplace heat. Not to mention the Christmas decorations. Tinsel. They actually had the audacity to use tinsel. And red and green twinkling candles, and dripping mistletoe, and little fat, ceramic Santas that grinned from the shelves and leered from tables. Draco tried to ignore the hanging wreaths which had the gall to not only include tinsel, but red and gold tinsel at that. Tacky multiplied. An exercise in how tacky one house could be. 

Draco puffed out his cheeks and reminded himself that even if they did decorate with  _ glitter  _ and Gryffindor colors , they were still good people. People weren’t defined by their tastes, or lack of taste. Or something. It became harder to convince himself of that as he crossed through the front room where their wonky tree leaned, with sparse branches overladen with even more ceramic figures. These ones seemed to have no cohesion or even relevance to the holiday. There was a little shining mermaid with a flicking pink tail, two black cats with offensively neon green eyes that blinked ominously, a quidditch figure that spun around the tree, a blur of pumpkin orange uniform. Because why not? Draco thought with a sneer. Why not have pink and green and orange all spoiling a perfectly good tree? Okay, something that passed for a tree. 

“Cute, huh? We used to pick out a new decoration each year as kids.” 

Draco turned from the nightmare Christmas tree and spotted a Weasley he did recognize sprawling by the fire, setting up a chess set.

“Weasley,” he said curtly. “Yes.  _ Cute _ .” He had to press the lie through his teeth. Nothing about anything so far had been cute. Except the way Ginny had easily thrown her coat off, except the way she looked in her blue dress, or how she looked at him. 

Something drifted across Ron’s face, something that Draco could almost interpret as mocking. Or maybe even affection. That couldn't be right. 

“Malfoy,” Ron replied easily, unnecessarily. “Up for a game?”

“I’m actually trying to find Ginny.”

Ron nodded in an imitation of wisdom, his eyes drifting back down to his set. Draco was surprised to note it was one of the few elegant things in the room. Finely carved, beautiful stone. No glitter, no tinsel, no violent colors. Maybe sitting down to play a game wouldn’t be so bad.

“She went that way,” Ron eventually said, flicking his eyes up to a narrow door. Invitation rescinded. 

Draco found her in the kitchen, shoving a flakey pastry in her mouth, leaning against the counter, laughing at something Granger had said. As though she had been there for months. As though she had never moved in with him at all. 

The laugh died on her pretty lips as she turned ot him. “Why are you scowling?” 

Before he could answer, another brother stormed in the room, horn-rimmed glasses barely clinging to his narrow nose, holding up scraps of fabric. His face was as red as his hair but Draco figured that wouldn’t be a helpful observation to verbalize. 

“What  _ exactly _ happened to my jumper?”

“How are we supposed to know,” Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow. And thankfully, mercifully, she finished with a “Percy?”

“It’s all—”

“Hideous?” Ginny suggested.

“Ugh!” Percy cried, storming from the room.

The ceiling above creaked and dust fell between the gaps as the twins presumably went running. Draco would’ve sworn he could hear their gasps of glee. 

“Were they listening in? That is so like them,” Hermione said with a roll of her eyes. She wiped her hands on her apron. “So? How are they?”

“Delicious! But you knew that. No one makes a Cornish pasty like you,” Ginny said with a soft smile that once upon a happier time, Draco had managed to convince himself she saved for him. “Draco, you should try— Charlie!” 

Draco winced at how squeaky she had become so quickly. The wince rapidly turned into a frown as Ginny threw the last of her pastry down and ran across the room to throw herself into Charlie’s arms. Charlie was massive. Not in height, he was one of the shorter brothers. But in sheer muscle. Broad, scarred arms swamping Ginny’s tall frame even though she was a good few inches taller. 

“How is my baby sister doing?”

“Missing you,” she replied against his chest. Honestly. She replied honestly. Something pulled at Draco’s heart. Something cold and painful. She was living with him but missed them. Did she miss the tacky decorations, as well? The mess? How was that even possible?

“Ah, there’s my girl!” Arthur said as he entered behind Charlie. Draco sighed with relief that her father looked his age. Grey at his temples and wrinkles around his smiling eyes. That would make it far easier to not make a fatal mistake. His own parents preserved their faces with spells and potions and all sorts. People mistaking Narcissa for his sister happened more than he would’ve liked. 

Ginny stood between Charlie and Arthur, hugging them both to her sides, beaming. Glowing. Draco attempted to blend into the wall. All awkward elbows and curved shoulders. His mother should’ve starved him to stunt his growth. It would’ve been easier if the ceiling didn’t threaten his head every time he shifted. 

“Dad, this is Draco!” Ginny said, untangling herself from her brother and father and raising a hand to gesture to Draco. As though her father wasn’t intimately familiar with him and his family. As though they’d never met.

“Right,” Arthur said, the smile shifting a little. “It’s wonderful for you to join us. Molly is looking forwards to getting to know Ginny’s man, eh?” He winked and Ginny batted him softly. 

“Hey!” The cry came from outside. Another male voice, because of course. There were more. There was a roar of happiness, giggles and cries and Draco slunk closer to the wall.

“That must be—” Ginny began but she was already speeding out of the room leaving Draco with Granger and Arthur and Charlie who was glaring at him and his wall. Thank goodness for that wall.

“Son, a word?” Arthur began to say, cornering Draco in what he apparently thought was a friendly way, still smiling. “I truly do mean it, Molly is very excited. And, I am as well, of course. Our Ginny has told us so much about you and your relationship. We are so very proud of you for overcoming everything you have.”

Draco’s eyes widened. Arthur couldn’t be serious. Couldn’t seriously be bringing up the past right now. During their first encounter. Ginny had promised him they’d all be on their best behavior. She’d had “words.” They’d been prepped. They were all supposed to pretend he had only come into existence two years ago, perfectly formed, flaw-free, and hopelessly in love with their youngest. He glanced around the room in panic only to find Granger and Charlie had abandoned him to his fate. Death by sincerity. What a fitting end. 

“It can’t have been easy for you, growing up the way you did. I think sometimes we take it for granted how it is growing up in an all Gryffindor family, although of course that has its own challenges,” Arthur paused to chuckle and even that sounded warm and kind and Draco wanted to pull out his wand and Obliviate his own mind. “I hope you know that we will always be here for you, however you need, for both of you as a young couple. It’s not easy, first real, committed relationship. Well, there was Harry but... anyway, Ginny seems very smitten and we are just so glad to see her—”

And it appeared that Arthur was happy to prattle on without an interjection from Draco. That was before another brother entered, with his arm initially slung around Ginny’s waist before she shrugged him off and attempted to moved to Draco. She was pulled into the adjacent room by Granger’s out reached hand. Oh, so she hadn’t gone far then. Just far enough to leave Draco listening to earnest and painful kindness. The newest addition approached them and Draco’s only friend, the wall, and clapped a hand down on Arthur’s shoulder. Draco’s head was swimming. Surely this was more than six. And they all had to have the same amber hair and freckled faces. Somehow it was all beginning to feel like a sick joke. A set up. Maybe their whole relationship had been. Maybe Ginny just wanted to get him here and break his brain with the endless parade of identical and intimidating brothers and well-meaning fatherly chats. She’d promised she would have  _ words.  _ Just as he was spiraling, the brother connected his eyes to Draco and spoke.

“Mind if I cut in, dad?”

Arthur raised his hands and leaned away. Draco couldn’t breathe a sigh of relief because the other brother, who he had decided was definitely the most intimidating, was stalking away.

“You,” the brother said with a brief look back at Draco, “walk with me.”

The brother moved with ease through what felt like countless rooms, over countless familiars, under countless doorways. And Draco stumbled after him, only growing more irritated that he couldn’t hold himself gracefully. Draco Malfoy was elegant, damn it. And then he heard Ginny scolding him for  _ thinking _ in third person, and imagined her kissing him, and then he burst outside into a damp garden. 

“Malfoy, right?” The brother asked, his hands shoved into his pockets and no less intimidating for the casual pose as they strolled against the muddy grass. He had longer hair than the others, tied back neatly against his neck. That was helpful. The scary one was the one with the best hair. Draco could appreciate that. He himself was known for his shining, beautiful hair. 

“Right. And you’re…”

Draco recieved a wicked grin for his effort and he was reminded of the twins. They even had to act similarly. All Gryffindors through and through, as Arthur had pointed out. Couldn’t one of them have been a Hufflepuff? He could really use one right about now.

“It’s William but everyone calls me Bill. Listen, I’m going to be honest with you. It might be a novel concept to you, but I like to be an honest man. And I don’t like you being with Ginny. Not even a little bit.”

Draco balked. Bill didn’t pause even after that bit of honest wound. Draco followed him further down the back garden, suddenly feeling like his life was in this man’s hands. This very tall, very long-haired, very frightening older brother of the woman Draco loved. He was screwed. 

“And what exactly do you want me to do with that information?” he hissed back. Crap. Ginny had words with him too. He’d also been prepped. And hissing was definitely not on the agenda for the fun family holidays. Fun, fun, fun. Tacky tinsel and overbearing fathers and frightening brothers weren’t supposed to be on the agenda either. And neither was Bill leading him away alone down the garden path and clearly preparing to murder him. The ravens pecking at the fields scattered into the sky and Draco was once again grateful for nature in creating such a fitting atmosphere.

“You’re a free man, Malfoy. What do you want to do with that?”

“I’m not even sure what  _ that _ was. So, what? You hate me before you’ve even met me?” He sounded whiny. He knew he did. Either whiny or threatening. How did Bill manage to sound so cool and unthreatening while being such a dick? That was the true Gryffindor talent. Acting rude and exclusionary while maintaining their good guy images. Well, not all of them. Ginny was a Gryffindor. She wasn’t a dick. She was lovely. Sweet sunshine and— Right. His lovely Ginny. This was all for Ginny. 

“Please. Four of my siblings attended Hogwarts with you. And you ruined the experience of one in particular. You think I haven’t heard about you for a decade now?”

“You’re so sure about a situation when you weren’t even there?” Draco asked, his hands flexing against his thighs. He had meant for that to sound soothing. Reassuring. Maybe that was the balance to Gryffindors always sounding kind even while being dicks. Slytherins always sounding like dicks even while being kind. At least, that’s what he told himself. Why take accountability for his personal flaws when the Houses were right there? Besides, he wasn’t thirteen anymore. Why should he be made to answer for the actions of a kid that didn’t even exist?

“I might not have been there at school with you, but I know exactly the boy you were, Malfoy. See, Charlie may have been the one who came in to save the day and whisk a dragon away, but I was the eldest brother. I was the one Ron wrote to when you mocked his dress robes or insulted our mother.”

“I’m sorry for all of that,” Draco said immediately and honestly. He’d almost become comfortable with apologizing. It still made his face contort in a grimace. His face doing whatever it wanted. Traitor. Just as Slytherin as the rest of him. He almost stumbled as they walked closer to the stretch of black shining pond. “I was just a— just a dumb kid.”

“Sure, you were. But I was the one Ron’s wrote to when his wand broke and he begged me to send money back home so they could afford a new one. I was the one who recieved tear-stained pleas when he was eleven because you had humiliated him in front of the entire class. And couldn’t I just show up for a little bit and make you leave him alone? And I was only twenty. Did you realize that? There’s only nine years between me and Ron. I was younger than you are now, getting letters from my little brother that you were harassing him and making his life miserable. Finding out that he was being put in danger every year and nearly dying. And that he didn’t even have the proper equipment to have a good time at Hogwarts. A safe time. To learn some spells. The whole reason he was there and he couldn’t even do that. My little brother, Malfoy. My baby brother.”

Bill paused at the fence that ran along the pond. He threw his arms up on the wooden beam and leanded forward, staring into the water’s depths. “I was saving up everything I could from my first crappy job, straight out of Hogwarts, just to try to help some back home. And it wasn’t enough. It was never enough to help them just get by. While you were flashing your daddy’s money around, buying your entire team new brooms, rubbing Ron’s face in it.” Bill turned to him, arms still mercifully resting against the beam and not around Draco’s throat. His words were choking him enough as it was. “So, forgive me if I don’t immediately fall over myself to become friendly with you, Malfoy.”

Bill fell silent and Draco swallowed painfully. Was he supposed to speak? What was he supposed to say after something like that? The prepping hadn’t involved outright hostility. She’d said they would be nice! She’d had words! During the heavy silence, the ice-cold rain pattering over their shoulders, Draco considered throwing himself over the fence and into the pond. He could sink down to the deep depths below and become frozen in time. It was dark and probably quiet and he doubted an abundance of Weasleys lurked under its surface. He shivered. 

“But I get it,” Bill finally said. “I know the boy you were. I don’t know the man you’ve become.”

Draco nodded, blond hair falling in his eyes. The pond could wait. “Would you— do you think you could? Get to know me?”

“And, if I’m honest,” Bill added more conversationally, ignoring Draco’s question. “Ron seems like he’s been able to put it in the past. Probably for Ginny’s sake. Because he’s her older brother, and that’s what older siblings do. They put their little siblings first.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Draco said weakly. “Only child.”

Bill nodded. “Explains a lot. Look, I don’t want to get to know you, Draco. Not really. You’re arrogant and spoiled. And you’ve hurt my family in so many varied and nuanced ways, I can’t even summarize it. But she’s my little sister. My baby sister.”

Draco wiped rain from his cheeks and nodded. Rain. It was just rain. He hadn’t been moved by Bill’s melodramatic rant. Hadn’t felt the blossom of guilt in his chest. Tears were definitely not falling down his cheeks and mixing with the rain as he was reminded of how unworthy he was and how generous this family was in accepting him. Not at all. If anything was going to make him cry, it was that awful tin- he couldn’t even finish the thought. Tinsel or no tinsel, tacky ceramic cats with blinking eyes or no, he was at a disadvantage here. He was the odd man out. And no amount of hyper-critical observations about their decoration choices would change that. And no amount of warnings or  _ words _ would change the fact they’d all lived through his growth. His worst years. 

“So, yeah, wise up. ‘Cause I might not have been there with you at Hogwarts, but I’m here now. And if you hurt her or any of them, you’re dead.” Bill grinned and stretched away from the fence. He dropped a heavy, muscular arm around Draco’s shoulders. The affectionate gesture felt oppressive. “So don’t, alright?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Balance restored! A fluff series to balance out my angsty fic. 
> 
> Let me know what you think?


End file.
